Hammocks, Volleyball, Beagles, & More

It’s been pretty quiet around here since I returned from SD.

• We attended local brewery Austin Beerworks’ 2nd Anniversary party yesterday with our friends the Thompsons… and about 5,000 other people. Didn’t expect it to be that popular of an event. They had a new limited-time beer called Heisenberg in honor of Breaking Bad, and a Soul Glo sour beer in honor of Coming to America.
• Friday night was friend Heather’s 29th birthday party at the new Bart house. Lauren and I were on hand for some grilling and birthday festivities with many other friends.
• A cold front pushed through Texas and we saw record low overnight temps in the 20s a few days ago. Still no sight of snow in two years here, thankfully.
• Our sand volleyball team ended up going 6-0 and won the league championship at Hanover’s in Pflugerville. It was my first sports title since an amazing comeback in ’05 DSU co-ed softball.
• Baxter is about to celebrate his second birthday on Saturday. A fellow beagle owner friend has told us that 2 was the age her beagle really started to mellow out, so hopefully that holds true for us too. Baxter has continued to break out of crates at alarming rates, destroy Lauren’s yarn, and carry bags of tortilla chips into the lawn for consumption. 
• Some tasks at work really have me scratching my head, so to speak. I really do not have any knowledge of, nor can I grasp the very concept of certain programming languages, yet I am in charge of a few e-mail integration projects that require just that. Any time I hear the word “variable” my brain just checks out.
• It is proving very time-consuming to switch banks. I had been with Wells Fargo since 2002 and then they started charging us a $13 monthly fee; so with our mortgage going through Chase, we decided it makes more sense to bank with them too. There were a ton of bills coming out of WF.
• I also thought our backyard lacked one important thing: a hammock. So I bought a hammock. And unfortunately the hammock is a little too big for the stand and it sags down too far when I sit in it, but I think I can buy a new longer pipe and drill some new holes in it to expand the stand to the appropriate length.